MARINA

As soon as Marshall heard the gravel crushing beneath his tires, he was a little boy again, peering out the wide window overlooking the obsidian waves that was Lake Potter. He remembered his knuckles turning white, his skinny fingers grappling at a heavy blue curtain, dragging it down as he sank lower and lower into the armchair his mother had moved so she could watch the boats. Marshall, thirty now, pocketed his keys and strolled down the path that led to a series of steps. He noticed that dandelions and straying grass had wedged themselves between cracks and wondered how long it had been since anyone walked these stairs. For him, it was over ten years ago‒when he was nineteen. Looking up at the sky, tinted blue, he remembered when it was as black as the waves. He had asked his mother why they were watching an empty sky, but then there was an array of popping noises, showering the black with brilliantly colored embers.

He felt the lake calling to him, inviting him in for one last swim. He had come to the cottage with the intent of selling it because after the passing of his parents, there was no use for it anymore. He reasoned that his family needed the money that would be made. So he didn't feel like a total corporate mongrel, he told himself that the cottage deserved to be filled with liveliness once again, something that his non-eccentric family wouldn't be able to provide.

He resisted the urge and retreated into their lake house. Within seconds of opening the storm door, a familiar whiff washed over him. He had forgotten what summer smelled like. He ambled through the narrow hallways, feeling oddly cautious inside the now Alice-sized home, and marveled at the knickknacks his mother had been afraid to clutter inside their house in Newark. Along the walls were shelves of glass jars filled to the brim with colored sand and brittle shells he'd find walking along the shore. His favorites were shaped like small cornucopias, and he often imagined them as sleeping bags for embryonic mermaids. His mother had given a slight smile when he told her this.

The cottage was quite small, but the thought of cleaning every nook and cranny and getting it presentable for sale overwhelmed him. His eyes darted around the room for a place to start. He rummaged through the cupboard for a rag and under the sinks for Windex. He began washing windows. He scrubbed the ones in the bedrooms first, moved onto the bathroom, the kitchen, and finally the living room which was tucked to the side, giving them a nice view of paradise. These windows opened up the entire room, stretched high to the ceiling and back again towards the carpet. He sat in his mother's chair and looked out at Lake Potter. There were no boats.

The more he stared, the more he longed to be with the waves again. He glanced at his watch. I have time before Caroline comes, he thought gruffly, and put his swimsuit on. He padded out to the dock, toes hot against the wood, and wondered if he should wade in or jump off like he did when he was younger. He noticed that the sand in the lake had risen and his mother's voice echoed inside his mind. Marshall, if you can see bottom, don't jump. He didn't.

Toe first was hesitant, waist-deep was gradual, complete submersion was nostalgic. He swam to the sandbar in the middle of the lake, dipping in and out with the ripples he created, swimming like he'd never left the water, like he'd never left Lake Potter or his boyhood summers.

"Marshall?"

He'd like to say that he froze, that he didn't recognize her wind chimes, but he was expecting her. She said she'd always be here. "Marina," he said, as if proclaiming her name to the lake. He saw no one there.

"Over here," she said, and he listened for the applause of the waves. He saw her minnow-like figure to the left. His eyes met hers, and she revealed herself. "You were always good at finding me," she pouted.

"If you didn't want to be found, I wouldn't be good at it."

She didn't deny it. "I haven't seen you in moments," she said. "You look..."

"I know," he said. "And it's been a little longer than a moment."

She laughed, tucking a strand of her ribbon-like hair behind her ear. It seemed darker than the last time he saw it, but that was years ago. "You've already forgotten our ways." Her eyes flickered down. "You really have been away."

"I couldn't stay here forever, Marina."

"I thought I was never going to see you again. Why are you back?" It wasn't an accusation.

Marshall grew guiltily quiet. When he returned to Lake Potter, Marina and her world had never crossed his mind, but being here with her, he wondered how he had ever forgotten. When they said their annual goodbye at nineteen, it never occurred to him that it would be their last for almost ten years. He didn't want to tell her that he was leaving Lake Potter behind for good.

"Just a visit," he said.

She nodded, accepting his inadequate answer. "We should catch up. You look like you have more stories. And I can't keep listening to the ones about your adolescent heartbreak, now can I?" She smiled wryly at him, and he rolled his eyes and gave a small chuckle.

"You found those stories interesting," he insisted. "Don't lie."

"They were the only ones I had from the outside world! But now I know that you were just an overly sensitive teenager."

"I was not overly sensitive. Besides, you liked that."

Her eyes were glinting and she bit her lip mischievously. "Come down to Potter with me," she said.

"Are you serious?"

Marshall wasn't supposed to know that Potter even existed and Marina told him that she was breaking the Laws of the Sea by telling him. He had to have been only fourteen when they spent the night on the shore together, him in a sleeping bag on the dock and her beneath him in a nest of weeds and lily pads. "I wish summer was longer," he said. It was their last day at the cottage.

Marina offered him a half smile and insisted that a year wasn't so long. Marshall didn't think so. "It's not fair," he said. "You deserve way more than this lake. Don't you ever get tired of just swimming around the same old place?"

Marina shrugged. "It's familiar."

"But familiar must be boring. I wish you could just come with me. You would love the land. I'm sure of it. Can't you just grow feet or talk to a sea witch?"

She laughed. "It doesn't work like that, Marshall. We've been over this." He grumbled. She dropped her voice until he could barely hear it over low tide. "Want to know a secret?"

Still in his sullen stupor, he nodded. She gestured him closer. "I don't live in Potter Lake. Well, I do, but it's not what you think."

He leaned farther off the dock until their faces were two hands apart. "What do you mean?"

She took a deep breath. "If I tell you this, you can't ever talk about it again. Not unless I bring it up."

He nodded.

"You promise?"

He nodded again, more eagerly this time. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I promise."

"I'm serious, Marshall." He said that he wouldn't tell anyone and they did their secret handshake that melded the land and the sea. "Not a soul."

She told him about Potter and how the sky was always dewy around the glass towers and how they seemed to soar above the surface. "They're so exclusive," she gushed. "You have to be invited to live in the towers."

"Do you live there?"

She said she didn't and then told him about her home in the cove-de-sacs. Marina was a larger-than-life character and had the tendency to embellish her tales, but Marshall didn't know that then. He took it all at face value, even inventing intricacies himself, and she would go along with it.

"How do you get there?" he asked.

"I swim."

"Can I go?"

She didn't answer and her eyes steadied on her wrist. Marshall touched her arm and repeated himself. Still staring at her wrist, she said softly, "You can only go if you become one of us."

"Become one of you," his voice trailed. "Like, become a merman?" She nodded hesitantly, like it pained her to. "Let's do it," he said. "I can already hold my breath. You taught me, remember?"

"Breathing underwater doesn't make you a merman, Marshall. And once you become one, you can't go back. It's permanent."

"So I'd be stuck in Lake Potter forever?"

"In a sense, yes."

"I'd never get to see my family again? Or my friends?"

"You'd see them, but they wouldn't be allowed to see you."

"Then how come you're allowed to see me?"

"There are always exceptions," Marina said. "You'll find yours."

Marshall gaped at his old friend, disbelieving the words that had just come from her mouth. "Come to Potter with me. I think it's time."

"Marina, I can't."

"Why not?" He couldn't tell her that he had a life, especially not after he lied to her about his reasons for returning. "You said you came back to visit."

"I can't," he stammered, saying it again with more conviction.

"What happened between nineteen and now?"

What had happened? He had grown up and did what life had dictated of him. He couldn't say that to Marina. For some reason, telling her about Caroline and the children felt wrong. It almost felt like he was betraying her, but he knew that wasn't the case because he was no longer nineteen, and Marina no longer had a hold on him.

"It's complicated," he said.

"It's complicated or you don't want to tell me?"

He looked behind his shoulder at the cottage, his eyes imagining the roof sloping into the lake—all of it a silver spoon. "Race you to the bottom and back," he said, gulping the air before rocketing down towards the seafloor. He had done this many times, hoping that one day he'd break the portal into Potter without a transformation. It never worked.

On his last visit, his mind was made up. He was ready to join Marina and he would do everything in his power to make it happen. He left notes to his parents inside a jar of shells and made sure to tie any loose ends before coming to Potter Lake for the summer. He told her to meet him at the sandbar, and when he said he wanted to come to Potter, her smile faded, her fingertips icy on his arm. "I don't want you to do it," she said.

Her waves crashed into him, washing away any joy he had for her. "What do you mean?"

"I don't want you to come to Potter. Not yet. You're not ready."

"How do you know I'm not ready?" he demanded. "Marina, I've thought a lot about this. This is what I want."

"Believe me when I say you're not ready." She took his hands. "In time," she said. "You'll know when."

Every day for the rest of that summer, he dove and he dove trying to find Potter, trying to break the barrier, trying to become a merman, trying to be with Marina. But she wouldn't have it, any of it. He always returned to the surface sputtering and seeing black, a carving in the sand telling him to stop. He memorized the curves of her signature, which propelled him further into what his mother called oblivion.

"If you don't want to be with me, why do you keep saving me?" he asked her.

"You really think that?"

"What other explanation is there? We're just wasting time, Marina. We could be down there, in Potter, right now. I want to be part of your life. Nine months is too long to be apart."

"Come with me," she said, flitting into the water like a dragonfly. Marshall followed, his muscled legs treading behind him. She plummeted, Marshall in quick pursuit, deeper than they had ever been. Marina always took him to little places in the lake he otherwise wouldn't have found, but she was always careful to provide him with ample time to get air. This wasn't the case.

He felt the sun far longer than he could see it. There was no returning from this because he was almost positive that not even Marina could save him now. He felt as though she wouldn't notice if he did fall behind. She never looked back once. Not even a glance.

He woke up washed up on the shore of the cottage with Caroline patting his cheeks with frantic eyes. "Marshall, you're alive," she sighed. "I was so...I can't believe I almost lost you." She brought him closer to her.

"When did you get here?"

"Just in time," she said. "What happened out there? Did you hit your head or something? Was there a wave? Are you okay? Should I call an ambulance or take you to the doctor? God, Marshall. What were you even doing out there? I didn't even know you had your swimsuit with you."

"I didn't. I found them in the closet."

She laughed, almost in hysterics, high off of the adrenaline. "You were supposed to clean the house and you couldn't even handle that." She brushed the hair from his forehead. "I'll have to get Sadie to babysit you."

"She would love that, huh?"

They were quiet, Caroline listening for irregular breathing and Marshall listening for wind chimes. Then Marshall asked where the children were and Caroline told him that they were inside. Marshall looked up at the window to see his children loomed over him.

"Are you okay to stand?" Caroline asked.

Marshall nodded, and they walked hand in hand into the cottage, Marina watching them the entire time. There was a stillness to the house that never existed before. Perhaps it sensed the premonition, readying itself. All the while, Marshall knew what he had to do. He was right. Everything around him was too normal for what he knew, for what he wanted. He suddenly felt like he was playing pretend in someone else's life, going through the motions with slight confusion. There was nothing he could do about it now. Ever since Marina almost swept him over, gave him a glimpse of what Potter was, Caroline kept a careful eye on him for the rest of the trip. Even if he felt like he was ready‒and he wasn't quite sure that he was‒he couldn't. She was always hesitant about him even leaving the cottage. There was no way he could get close to the dock without three eyes watching him.

He sat in his mother's chair, watching the boats sail by and by, not a Marina in sight.

At night, when he was restless, Marina would come into his mind. It wasn't really her, of course. Marina would've visited him before now if she could. She was so vivid in his mind, her voice ringing like wind chimes, beckoning him closer. "Marshall," she would sing, twirling around, creating a whirlpool of his mind. "It's time. It's time. It's time."

The night was obsidian, cold yet still, and stars reflected off the lake. Marina was there, flitting around like she always did. "You found me," she said.

"You know I'd be here."

"Of course."

"How'd you know?"

"I didn't, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say you did. You know where you belong now."

"I always knew."

There was no one there to watch the waves sweep over him, no one there to carry him back to the shore, no one there but Marina.

•••

Lucille Potter often woke up in a puddle of tears, hair soaked in salt, clenching the duvet until she could feel her fingertips touch on either side of the fabric. "Robert," she wailed, "Take me to the lake!"

He sighed any annoyance for her she had away and rubbed her back. "There is no lake." The lake had been a thing in her dreams for weeks now, replacing forests and pink houses for good.

"Robert, I saw him this time. I saw him."

"Lucy, please, this isn't healthy." He didn't want to say it, but the more she heard it, the more real it would be. "Marshall's dead."

"He has kids. We're grandparents, honey. Can you believe it? I didn't get to see them this time, but I'm sure he'll show them to me next time."

Robert shook his head, wondering how long he should let her go on like this. He asked one of his friends, a psychiatrist, for advice, and he said that this was her way of coping. Robert didn't think so. He thought this disillusionment was a way for her to hold on longer, to reject reality.

"The girl, she was there again. I saw her from the window."

Lucille had chosen to do a water birth, like all of the women in her family had done, but something had gone wrong. The sounds of Marshall's cries had been muffled, coming up as pockets of air before they popped at the surface. Panic whirred around her, dizzying what should be been the best moment of her life. She grappled at the bath water, clawing her way until her hands touched the bottom, searching for her small infant.

"I want to hate her," Lucille said. "But I don't hate her. How can I? She took him to a place better than us."

She insisted on bringing home a baby blanket in case they were wrong, in case Marina brought him back. She held onto this little strand of hope, pulling it until the ends were frayed. Once she brought herself to the nursery and rocked herself to sleep so she could pretend his birth never happened and believe the myth of death. The nursery was yellow and it made Robert cringe each time he stepped through the door. The false cheer made him want to paint it all black because black was empty and had no false pretense. Black was empty and could be pushed into the shadows.

Lucille didn't want that. She wanted it yellow, and yellow it stayed. After that day, though, she never went back in there.

"I want to be with him," she said. "I want to be where he is."

"And where is that?"

"Let me be with the mermaids."

"Lucille, you need to stop with the mermaids. They don't exist."

"Please, Robert. Please tell me to be with the mermaids."

"You don't need my permission," he said.

"I need to make sure you'll be all right when I'm gone."

"What in God's name are you talking about?" She went silent and he could feel her body shaking next to him. "Okay," he said. "Be with the mermaids."

He didn't know what the mermaids were or where they lived, but he knew he didn't like them when he saw her jump into the pond the next day. "He's my mermaid," she whispered, deluged with the thought of reality. "Never let him take me away again."

And he didn't.